Diagenesis and Porosity of the Cambrian‐Ordovician Carbonate Shoal Facies at Yangjiaping, Shimen, Hunan

Abstract: Upper Cambrian‐Lower Ordovician shoal‐facies carbonate rocks are well developed in the Yangjiaping section, Shimen, Hunan, and their types are also highly varied. There are both monomictic shoal‐facies rocks (e.g. sparite oolitic limestone and sparite calcarenite) and polymictic shoal‐facies rocks (e.g. grainstone, whose grain types include sand‐ and pebble‐sized fragments, bioclasts, oolites, algal mats etc.). What is different is that the Upper Cambrian shoal‐facies rocks have been mostly strongly dolomitized into shoal‐facies dolomite with various residual textures. This paper presents an in‐depth study of various kinds of diagenesis and pore space evolution occurring in this section and suggests that the diagenetic sequences of shoal‐facies rocks in the study area is dominantly of retrogressive type.